Monday, 28 July 2014

BFI Top 50: No. 42b Playtime (1967)

In 2012 the BFI (British Film Institute) polled 846 critics, programmers, academics and distributors to update their list of what, in the experts opinion, are the greatest Movies of all time (to date).In 2014 I decided to watch them.

Number 42b: Playtime

Here we are again. Yet another “Timeless masterpiece” that is not worth the celluloid it was filmed on. I honestly expected to enjoy this one. Monsieur Hulot was apparently the inspiration for Mr Bean and a spiritual successor to The Little Tramp. I call “conneries”.

The movie is so slow as to be genuinely tortuous has very little dialogue or even sound. Hulot has no character at all, there is absolutely no plot and if this is the definition of chaos than I know people who's lives are genuinely cataclysmic.

However I must confess that the film has beaten me. I didn’t finish. I contest that any film that you can reach three quarters of the way through and feel like you want to eat the screen to stop the pain is NOT WORTH FINISHING.

Utter, utter, utter merde. Do not bother.

THIS MOVIE WILL NOT BE ON MY LIST. UNLESS IT’S A HIT LIST.

Ratings

IMDB rates this film at a truly ludicrous 8. 1 is more the mark. Rotten Tomatoes has it as 100% fresh. I wouldn’t throw it at Hitler in the stocks. 5%